Indifference and Overthinking
There are just too many problems in this damned life. One moment youâre trying to solve one, then another problem pops up. And then another. And another. Itâs like a virus taking hold of your whole being until you could only wonder, âShould I just break?â
  What I think is that, sometimes, the only virus here is our mind. Itâs not necessarily a virus that creates problems. Not really. The mind, if we let it control us instead of the other way around, could become a virus that would breed âillusionsâ of problems.
 I once heard an employee discussing her worries with her boss. âI just canât take it sometimes.â She said. âIâm doing my best here, but some people just wonât mind their own business! They see me sitting once, and they tell everyone that Iâm not doing my work!â
 The employee was so exasperated, it seemed like she was going to burst into tears! But her boss remained calm and smiling. âDonât mind them. Iâm the one who would judge your work, not them. Those people, the ones who would rather criticize others rather than themselves, would never climb up the ladder. Never. Let me tell you that.â The employee was going to reply, I think, but the boss continued. âAnd anyone who lets himself be affected by those people would eventually drain their energy. I know itâs very difficult, but if you still can, donât hate the people who make you feel that way. Iâm not saying you should love them! No. Justâdonât mind them. Be indifferent. I tell you, even without you feeling bad or doing something terrible to them, nature will take its course, and those people would just fall.â
 I knew it was rude to be eavesdropping, but I was finding the situation more and more interesting. I pondered about what the boss just said. It was a typical advice, something I would find in TV shows or books. And to be honest, I donât usually take typical counsel seriously. Most of the time, people who say those kinds of things are only reciting from what they watched, or if anything, reciting the best-sounding answer they could come up with. But the boss seemed connected to what she was saying. And she did look like the kind of person who would ignore her criticsâa lot of critics, in her case, since sheâs the type who would always defend her points.
 Quietly realizing my rudeness, I decided to walk away. I did, then again I heard the boss one last time. âBut actually, I think youâre just overthinking.â
 Oddly, that last sentence struck me the most. What if the employee was overthinking? If she was, then all those sob, all those words, all those bad vibes she was feeling! Theyâre all caused by nothing but her mind. What if the people she was talking about werenât criticizing her at all? What if she misunderstood what she heard? It was crazy, thinking about it, especially when I gathered how worked up she was about the issue.
 In the end, what the boss said were connected, I think. Never overthink. From what I gathered, the employee didnât confront her critics at all. Thatâs the weakness there. If we donât confront our problems, we would never find out the truth. We would continue to assume.
 And if the critics really were criticizing her? There comes the indifference. Itâs not so easy to feel bad of our critics if we know that weâre doing the right thing. In the employeeâs case, if she knew she was doing her job, it wouldnât really be so irritating that some people are criticizing her. The boss was right. She was going to be the one judging the employeeâs work, not anyone else. Eventually, the truth that she was really doing her job would surface.
 It was a simple lessonâa lesson most of us would ignore. And yet, I had the feeling that it was realâthat it wasnât just a âtypical adviceâ. So despite myself, Iâve always carried those words in my heart. Maybe one day, I would be able to use it. One day.